Wednesday, December 8, 2010

I was delivering flowers yesterday afternoon. Nothing out of the ordinary. Actually, I was delivering a gift basket to a doctor at Two Rivers Veterinary Clinic on Old Lebanon Road on the north east side of town but that doesn't matter. The gift basket part not the Two Rivers Veterinary Clinic part. That does matter.

Hell. Lemme try that again.

So I was delivering a gift basket to a vet's office yesterday. Not a veteran's office, a veterinarian's office. You know what? I'm just gonna start drinking right now. Maybe that'll help.

Okay... Third time's a charm. Yesterday afternoon I was delivering a gift basket to a veterinary clinic (I DID IT!). I pulled up to the front door in the behemoth that is our delivery van and parked squarely in the "NO PARKING" zone. I have special privileges, that's why. I got out of the van, walked around the back of the vehicle, and opened the side door. There was the arrangement gift basket in all its glory. I picked it up, assed the door shut, and walked in.

Upon entering, I was met with a set of two doors: one to the left that read "Dogs" and one to the right that red "Cats". Seeing as that I had a basketful of edible goodies (read: not underwear), I used my quick flower delivery man thinking and deduced that of the two doors, the one that read "Cats" would be less likely to have animals in that want to eat all of the delectables that I was carrying. I also guessed that there probably was no catnip in said gift basket. Also, I had to get into the office itself.

This is the conversation that I had with the front desk administrator lady:

Me: "Hi!"

Front desk administrator lady: "Hi! OHMYGOSHTHATISGORGEOUS!"

Me: "Awesome! Yeah, this is for Dr. Schlabach."

Front desk administrator lady: "Oh, I can take it to him."

Me: "Great, thanks. I hope it's okay."

Front desk administrator lady: "You hope what's okay?"

Me: "Well, I saw a door for 'Dogs' and a door for 'Cats' but I didn't see a door that read 'Humans'. I'm not in trouble, am I?"

Front desk administrator lady: [silence]

Me: "Have a good one!"

And this was after me meeting someone at Vanderbilt Hospital named Cookie Warpool. I didn't think my day was going to get any better after that but boy was I wrong...

Sunday, December 5, 2010

Every year about this time I get an email from my dad asking me what I want for Christmas. Because a large part of me is and will perpetually be eight and a half years old, I usually ask for toys. Two years ago, for example, I asked for Mario Kart Wii. My dad asked something to the effect of "What the hell is that?" I told him to simply go into Best Buy, find a dude with a blue shirt and a pair of khaki pants on, hold out your arms and pretend like your driving a steering wheel, and say "My 28 year old son wants Mario Kart Wii." Really, I just wanted the mental image of my dad doing that in a store more than anything else. By the way, Mario Kart Wii has NOT disappointed. My dad has yet to tell me whether he acted like he was driving when he asked the dude at Best Buy for help. I like to think he did.

Being a bit of a bah humbugger, I haven't cared much for Christmas for the past several years. I like getting out of town for a bit. I like cookies. I like seeing, well, some of the family. I like going downtown to The Torch and getting my annual TorchBurger and pints of Guinness for $2.75 (or whatever it is they cost now). I don't like 97.46% of Christmas music. The only two Christmas tunes that I will voluntarily listen to are "Fairytale of New York" by The Pogues (or whoever happens to be covering it) and "All I Want for Christmas is You" by Mariah Carrey. Shut your damn mouth. Don't act like you don't like that song, too. I don't like the security at the airport. I don't like the great bloody wind tunnel that is the arrivals gate of Detroit Metro Airport -- it's like they said "Hell, let's figure out a way to make it even colder." If I were interested enough, I would have made the word "colder" appear in blue letters but I'm pretty lazy at the moment and this football trivia set that I have been procrastinating on all week isn't going to write itself.

This is, however, the season of wishes and with that in mind and my dad's email hitting my inbox this afternoon, I sent him my Christmas wishlist this evening. It went something exactly like this:

Dad,

Here's my Christmas wish list:

-- A gift certificate to zappos.com -- I'd like to buy a nice pair of running shoes. Link: http://www.zappos.com/gift-certificate

-- A bottle of fine scotch. Any reputable liquor store should be able to help you out with this one. I'm partial to anything from the Speyside region of Scotland. :)

-- A jacket that falls somewhere in between the lines of "I wanna be cool" and "I really can't be because I like 'Lord of the Rings' too much." Maybe some sort of sport coat. Black or heather grey, preferably.

-- Eric to do his rendition of this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=104cdcySpEs

-- Justin Bieber to fall off a tall building. I know you probably don't know who he is but imagine a modern Canadian version of Donny Osmond and you're in the ballpark. If you can make this happen, I don't think I'd need any of the other wishes on this list.

After that, just kind of let your imagination run wild.

See ya in a few weeks,

Stephen

I will report back to you, dear readers, with the results of my haul. Hopefully, I'll post between now and then because I know how Nick gets into such a tizzy when I don't post often enough.

Now, I bet that some of you probably glossed over that list. If you did, then you missed this gem. It's funny because the aforementioned Eric is my younger, Korean brother.